Le's Beauty Salon
Website Redesign
Overview
Task
Redesigning Le's beauty salon website (http://lessalonbeauty.com/). This site is extremely outdated.
Here are my tasks to keep in mind when redesigning the website.
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Better improve navigation throughout the site.
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Make this site useful for the users intended and make it easy to look for information.
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Clear user funnels to target the clients' needs, which will increase the chance of conversions.
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Apply SEO best practices in order for the site to be found easily without having to spend your budget on ads.
Challenge
The site itself is extremely outdated. There's no strategy in content placement. Also, the content on the site is not helpful for the users. The lack of certain information on the site can lead to less credibility for the business. The photos that are currently being displayed all looked like stock photos. People generally go to the salon site to look at the services provided, prices, hours, and location. Yet, the price on the site is a pdf file where users will need to download which can lead to users leaving the site. People do not want to download documents. It can be a privacy or security issues around that. Providing a gallery page can showcase what this salon can do. Providing the stylist page can let the clients better understand who they are. Since the current site does not provide this information, people will have to call which makes it very inconvenient.
Solutions
Timeline
2 weeks of company research
3 weeks of wireframing
5 weeks of redesigning until the final presentation
Original Website
First understand what is this salon's past, current, and future reputation. Set the goals that the business would like to achieve. In this case, the salon's goal is to gain new customers and retain loyalty with the ones they currently have. Make sure who is the target audience to better focus on different strategies to reach them. Showcase the unique value proposition and do competitor research. Make it simple but easy to navigate to the information that is needed.
Redesign Website
Color theme
The first color chosen was #8C38BD. That was picked from the logo color. The rest of the colors follow the analogous.
Brand Discovery
Define the Brand
Le’s Salon and Beauty is a Chinese based salon located in Downtown Boston. We strive for affordable value in beauty services. Nowadays the salon in Boston charges customers over $70 for a haircut, while we are able to offer the same service for more affordable pricing! We believe that keeping our appearance doesn’t equal to emptying your wallet.
Who We Are
Our goal is to make everyone feel good about themselves. As a beauty salon, we understand that everyone wants to be beautiful and hair is a great part of our self-image for both men and women. Therefore, we want to make it affordable so that everyone can all feel good about themselves as they should be.
Brand Reputation
Past Brand:
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Chinese or Asian only
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Cheap salon
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Quick hair cut
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Convenience (easy to book appointments, even walk-in is available)
Current Brand:
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Some customers still feel that the salon is for Chinese or Asian only
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More than just a quick haircut (We provide a variety of services )
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Make it easy to book appointments, decrease advertisements on walk-ins. (Do not want to rush services to take in the walk-ins)
Future Brand:
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Make the salon feel more welcome for all people to come in, not just Asian
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Affordable, but not “low quality”. The brand should be of great value for beauty service, not just “cheap” haircut
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We offer similar services to other salons. Therefore, we should not be known as quick hair cut such as SuperCut, but we should be treated like one of the professional salons because that is who we are. We are able to provide the same service for a much better price
Target Audience
1. Primary: Students
Boston is full of students, both locally and internationally. We understand that students are already paying tons on tuition and housing. Our price is definitely affordable for students, and we do provide students discounts. We also have an easy-access location. (close to the T station) (65%) Current students, we can do a reward program if they recommend new students to come in. The students' turnover rate is extremely high therefore we will always have new clients coming in.
2. Secondary: Workforce
We are located in Downtown, Boston which is fairly close to the financial district. Once again, the price is affordable also for the workforce. Since people who are new into the workforce probably are not earning a lot. Even for those who have been in the workforce but that has a family (moms would still like to look beautiful, and dads who would like to feel fresh), they would most likely want to save money. (25%)
3. Tertiary: Others
This will just target those who do not believe in spending tons on beauty service. However, at the same time, they may not care for any other services other than a regular quick haircut(men). For elderly women, they may want to keep up with their grey hair and perm. We can still accommodate them, but they will not be the priority. Since they will not bring in the business revenue as much as the students who are trying to keep themselves in the fashion trend. (10%)
Homepage Design Process
Wireframes
Complexity Analysis
With the three designs, I did a complexity analysis on them to see which one is best. Here are the results. The original design has the tallest bar because, in order to convert the customers, the customers may take a longer time on the website to find out where they want to go. In comparison with Design 3, there are now more funnels so customers can quickly find out the information they need on the homepage.
High Level Goals
1. Become the brand that can provide similar great services yet for a much better price.
2. Get more new potential customers and to retain the current customers as well. (reward program)
3. Make it easy to book an appointment for everyone and make all people feel welcome and comfortable in our salon environment.
4. Make a new page on the product that the salon recommends or can be purchased from the salon site.
Here are the wireframes for new pages that would boost the traffic of the site.
- There is now a page dedicated to the teams, so our customers can quickly look at their background/ experience and directly book an appointment with them from this page.
- A new product page to boost side business for the salon. A page of products that people can buy directly from our site. These products are all the products that our customers have used before in the salon. This is a potential business for us and provides our customers with complete transparency on the products that are used in their hair.
Creative Likes vs. Creative Dislikes
• More images of our work. Create a gallery. Bigger images so our customers can quickly glance over and click on the one they like!
• We should also have a list of salon staff. The description of each person makes it even more reliable to the customers.
VS
• There are no images on the site. The only place that people can check out the salon’s work is on yelp.
• No actual social media pages…There are some, but no one is managing it.
• Old fashion photo on the homepage looks like stock photos.
• A confusing title such as “creative” haircut. What and how is a haircut creative? Keep it simple and clear.
- The wireframe shows a gallery of the work. Simple but straight to the point.
- The final design changed up the layout to make it more creative. When you hover, the photo darkens and shows the stylist name